Dream On

Mark age 4 - pre-broken nose

Last night as I lay in bed wide awake well after 3:00 am with an inexplicable case of insomnia, I found myself thinking about Mark as he lay snoring next to me off in dreamland.  And I was mainly contemplating these two things - his snoring and his dreams and how over the past 5.5 years of marriage I have a developed a love/hate relationship with them both.

Let us begin with the snoring.  First I must tell you that throughout his youth Mark broke his nose 5 times (and never while playing football incidentally).  I can only imagine that having ones nose broken 5 times would cause large amounts of damage to the septum, which in turn leads to snoring.  I understand that it really is not his fault and that I probably should not kick him gently tap him while I am trying to fall asleep.  I understand all of this, but it doesn't change the fact that he snores so loudly that I can often hear him in the living room, over the TV, from the bedroom which is down the hall with the door closed.  While we were in NYC for his brother's wedding, we stayed in a hotel room for a few days with his other brother Matt and girlfriend Beth.  Down at breakfast after the first night Beth looked at me in amazement and asked "how can you sleep through that snoring?"  With 5+ years of experience, Beth - that's how.  (Am now considering adding this experience to my resume.)  Apparently Matt and Beth were up incredibly late dying laughing, counting the number of different snores Mark has, naming them, and finally putting in their ipods so that they could fall asleep.  So it turns out that Mark has 7 different and distinctive snores.  This is great information - I always knew they were numerous but was too busy pushing him gently nudging him, I never bothered to count.  Now I regret that through the course of the busy wedding weekend and because I was told the names they came up with for these 7 snores early in the morning down at breakfast where I was tired and had no paper, that I only remember 1 of them.  (Note to self: text Matt and ask if he remembers the other names.)  And the main reason I remember the 1 name is because I knew which snore it was the minute they said the name.  The Volcano.  You see the volcano is proceeded by deceptively quiet snoring that comes out at such a nice even tempo it is practically lulling you to sleep, then there is a brief silence followed by a sudden earth shattering, village destroying eruption that is The Volcano.  And now you're wide awake again, heart pounding from the startling violent noise next to you.  And the cycle starts over...

Mark age 15 - not breaking his nose

Now onto the dreams.  Mark has an ability (in addition to the Volcano) that I find somewhat amazing - he can remember his dreams every night.  I barely ever remember my dreams, when I first wake up occasionally a weird mixture of images and events play through my head - which I quickly forget and go on with my day.  Mark however remembers all of his dreams, to the finest detail and even days later sometimes.  And every day he tells me, "I had the craziest/weirdest/most interesting dream last night" and proceeds to tell it to me.  Everyday for more than 5 years I have listened to his dreams.  I will admit that I often nod and say uh-huhs and yeahs at pauses, while actually reading my book/cooking/sewing/writing my blog but for the most part I do try to pay attention.  Hilariously Mark just called me from work to ask how I slept (didn't) and guess what?  Tell me his dream.  (I told you.  Everyday.)  So now I will share it with you.  (Begin dream sequence)  Mark and I were in the car driving around town.  I was driving and it was the town we lived in, but only in the dream, not actually Morrisville.  And I was apparently driving very fast and erratically.  So Mark told me that I was driving crazy and he wished I would slow down and be more safe.  To which I told him to be quiet and leave me alone and just let me drive (sounds about right).  So he was mad and sat next to me in silence thinking "if you want me to be quiet, fine I'll be quiet.  I won't speak another word."  I continued to drive so crazy that we drove right off a cliff that had a raging river running below it (see not Morrisville).  At which point he could hold his tongue no longer and began to yell at me as we flew through the air, "see I told you!  You never listen to me!  You were driving too fast and crazy and now we're going over a cliff!" etc...  I of course yelled back that I knew what I was doing and he needed to be quiet.  So then we hit bottom, but we hit the bank of the river and we are still going so fast that we bounce off, through a group of trees and right back onto the road.  To which I said "I told you so."  (End dream sequence.)  Hilarious.  And disturbing.  If you were to interpret this you might think it means that Mark feels I am driving our lives through a wild crash course.  But as you can plainly see, what it actually means is that he needs to just listen to me, cause I know what I'm talking about.  (And possibly hold on tight.)